It’s easy to complain about the every day dreary things that we have to do as Seattle Prep students: sitting through collegio lectures, waiting in the cafeteria line as it snakes up the floors of Adelphia, and making the often long walk to school each morning through the neighborhoods surrounding the campus. Throughout the years of attending Prep, my mindset was consistently focused on “getting through” the day, so that I can “get through” the week, and ultimately “get through” the year.
Freshmen year, this manifested as staying deep in my comfort zone. I hung out around people I knew before high school, I participated in class only when I had to, and I worried too much about everything. I was so busy bracing myself for the “next thing” that I didn’t realize I was merely spectating my own life. It took me a long time to see that by obsessing over the end of the week, I was fast-forwarding through the very moments that make the four years we have at Prep so special.
Sophomore year young women’s retreat helped me come to this realization. I was able to connect with the girls in my grade and release worries about what others might be thinking. In entering this mindset, I came to a vital realization that fueled my determination when becoming an upper classman at Prep to make the most of my time here: in dedicating all your brainpower to concern about the way you are perceived, you miss so many other things happening around you. To ignore these kinds of worries is to embrace each moment you live in fully.
Junior year I embraced this sentiment in its entirety. I stopped viewing the hallways as just transit tunnels between classes and started seeing them as the stage where my life was actually happening. I began to understand that the “dreary” routines, the morning treks through North Capitol Hill or the slow crawl of the lunch line, weren’t obstacles standing in the way of my day; they were the substance of my day, and to treat these moments as obstacles in life is to miss the point entirely of what it means to be present in it.
Reflecting on my time at Prep now as a senior, I’d like to pass on this advice to you: stop waiting for the “big moments” to start your life, and stop viewing Friday as the only goal worth reaching. When you stop holding your breath for the weekend or the next break, the weight of those “dreary” daily tasks begins to lift, replaced by the realization that your high school experience is built in the quiet, mundane spaces in between. Don’t just survive these four years, inhabit them. Whether it’s striking up a conversation with someone new while waiting for your lunch, actually leaning into the discomfort of a difficult lecture, or simply noticing the way the light hits the neighborhood streets on your morning walk, choose to be an active participant rather than a spectator. Your time at Prep will move as fast as you allow it to, so slow down, release the fear of judgment, and realize that the “real life” you’re waiting for is already happening right here in the halls of Prep.
